Capturing Gravity Sketch workflows in augmented reality

Here's a quick rundown of how to record your Gravity Sketch sessions through the lens of augmented reality; bringing your ideas to life in the real-world as they're happening.

Gravity Sketch

July 16, 2023

Recording Gravity Sketch to show your design process enables you to immerse your audience, clients, or customers within your workflow. Whether creating for footwear, automotive, or industrial design, in many headsets you can build to scale in mixed reality to see your designs in situ; headsets don’t provide an easy way of capturing the mix of real and virtual worlds, however following these steps can give you a way to show others your creation process in mixed reality.

There is a wide range of software available where you can achieve similar results to the outlined process below. This guide will focus on one method of doing this, with a comprehensive list of what’s needed using free or easily accessible tools:

Software you will need

Gravity Sketch VR application
Oculus PC application(GS installed)
OBS Studio

Hardware you will need

VR headset (Meta, Pico, HTC)
PC compatible with VR
External webcam / camera

Steps for recording

Step 1: Camera

Setup your webcam / camera through OBS studio. Add video source “Video Capture Device” that is synced to the camera. You should at this point see yourself through the camera on OBS.

This is where you will determine the approximate angle for your recording!

Step 2: Tether your headset

Tether your headset to your PC.

Step 3: Launch Gravity Sketch

Launch Gravity Sketch on headset along with the Oculus Application on your PC.

Step 4: Set up a second video source

Once Gravity Sketch is full screen on your PC, enter the desired workspace. Then go back to OBS studio and add a second video source; this time select “Window Capture” and assign the source to the window displaying the live feed of Gravity Sketch.

Step 5: Overlay the two video sources

Overlay the video source displaying Gravity Sketch over your webcam / camera feed; once we key out the color green only your controllers and headset within Gravity Sketch will be visible.

Step 6: Set up the Gravity Sketch room environment

Adjust the environment settings within your Gravity Sketch room to be a solid green color, with no gradients:

Step 7: Enable chroma key filter

Within OBS, right click on the video source displaying Gravity Sketch, then select “Filter” near the bottom of the drop down. From the next window select the “+” plus icon to add a filter. Select “Chroma Key” from the options drop down, then make sure to keep green as the selected color.

Step 8: Check the feed display

At this point you should see your perspective in Gravity Sketch VR over top of your camera or webcam feed within OBS.

Step 9: Set the Gravity Sketch window settings

Go back to the Gravity Sketch window on your PC and hit the “esc” key to be presented an options menu, then toggle on the “External Camera” feature.

Step 10: Align your external camera in VR

You will notice the external camera appear within your room in VR; switch back to being in VR to reach out, grab, and place the virtual camera as close to the physical location of your real camera as possible. This is the final step and most tedious part of the process!

Add a darker green surface to your scene to have real shadows shown within your physical environment!